An Italian who can't understand another italian ? Why ?

Question

An old Italian man said to me once : " son , you speak italian better than Italian : I don't understand a lot of people here in Italy ; because of the dialect " . What's the truth about the dialects in Italy ?

chris , affan.....!

Folks , I'll add something : I guess in the last few years came out a movie about story which took place in Naples . The movie which was in Naples dialect ; was subtitled .

Answer 1

I'm Italian,born and bred in Tuscany (Florence's Area) where it's spoken the dialect closest to the standard Italian. Here in Italy we generally indicate as Italian dialects all vernacular idioms spoken in Italy other than Italian and other recognized languages.
Due to the long history of separation in many small states and colonization by foreign powers (especially France, Spain and Austria-Hungary) that Italy went through since the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Italian reunification in 1861, there has been ample opportunity for linguistic diversification.
Dialects remained the common parlance of the population until about the 1950s. With progressive increases in literacy, standard Italian became gradually accepted as the national language. Until World War II people of lower classes, who could not afford schooling or simply had no use for a national language, continued to use their own dialects in their daily lives. It is probably in this period that the stigma against using dialects in public arose, since it was a sign of low social status.
Roughly in the same period, many southerners moved to the north to find jobs. The powerful trade unions, to maintain the workers united, successfully campaigned against the usage of dialects: this allowed southerners, whose dialects were not mutually intelligible with the northerners', to integrate using Standard Italian. The large amount of mixed marriages, especially in large industrial cities as Milan and Turin, resulted in a generation that could confidentially speak only Standard Italian, and normally only understand some of their parents' dialects.
As a result of these phenomena, dialects in Italy stand stronger in the South (where no immigration occurred), in rural areas (where there has been less blending and less influence from trade unions), among older generations.
Dialects of Italian are regional varieties which are closely related to Standard Italian, while the terms Dialects of Italy is suggested for those languages such as Neapolitan, Sicilian, and Gallo-Italian languages which show considerable differences in grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

Edit # 1 .A correction to Chris and the asker-
It depends on the dialect LOL
standard Italian = vaffanculo
tuscan = va 'nculo
neapolitan = 'fancule
ect,ect.

Answer 2

I'm Italian and I disagree with many points in Martox45's answer.
Before the ancient Romans what is now Italy was inhabited by many people having their languages, the Romans imposed the Latin, and these people developed their version. After the fall of the Empire they return to be different countries, many foreign tribes invaded the peninsula and islands and influenced these dialects of the Latin. All over what is now Italy, people spoke their dialects of the Latin language, not the dialects of the Italian that still didn't exist. The Italian was one of them, it was a dialect of the Tuscan language which is a dialect of Latin. Rich people chose to elect this Tuscan dialect as Italian because it was the most similar to Latin.
Nowadays in Italy all local languages are wrongly called dialects of Italian for political reasons, to make the Italian people. You have to make them believe that Italian is a very old language, the first and original and that poor uneducated peasants made a lot of its dialects.
After the unification of Italy only 2% of its inhabitants spoke Italian. All other people spoke their mothertongues. It's not true that people spoke them because they couldn't afford school. They spoke them because they are languages and UNESCO agrees, considering them romance languages to protect and in danger. During 1920s some Italians spread the voice if you spoke your language, renamed dialect, you would never be able to get educated and advance in society. In north west Italy teachers advised people to not speak them and teach them their ''dialects'' and to encourage them only speak Italian. In some school you were beaten if you spoke your dialect. Nowadays a lot of Italians believe if you speak in a dialect you're rude and uneducated whereas if you speak both Italian and your dialect you're bilingual.
Many Italians are still proud of their mothertongues, southern Italians and Venetians take pride in their mothertongues and don't let them die, even in Piedmont where I live many young people still spoke them.

Answer 3

Are you from the North of Italy or the South. Languages can change over the years. People come up with new ways to speak there language. We usually call this slang. You learnt to speak proper Italian either at school or adopted it from your family. You learnt the right way to speak it. If you stayed in Italy long enough you will start to pick up their language bad habits so to speak. Then you can speak modern Italian. Good Luck

Answer 4

If you know the history of Italy, you would know that Italy was comprised of "city-states", each comprised of people who had migrated into Italy from various places, and settled down, forming their own government.

The "dialects" are leftovers of their original tongues. Each city-state had their own forms of expression. These linguistic differences stem from their points of origin and their cultural heritage. While they eventually learned to speak Latin/Italian, the accents, certain words or phrases crept into the language and stayed. It made communication difficult, but not impossible.

Look at the US today, how various areas have specific "accents" to their common language of English. There are also terminology that are specific to certain areas of the US.

Same thing with Italy.

Answer 5

In the case of Italian, it's not just that there are lots of dialects, but actually there used to be (and to some extent there remain) lots of separate languages, most of them "offsprings" of Latin. BUT some of them are not even Latin-based. I used to have many Italian friends and they always proudly claimed that their "dialect" is their own separate LANGUAGE, and not just a dialect. :-)

Answer 6

NOBODY UNDERSTANDS THE WORDS THAT ARE COMMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!!!
Oh come on, I'm just kidding...
That is from a JACKIE CHAN MOVIE...He and that black guy whos' name I can't remember...
Anyway, who knows, we all have different dialects' so just ask thos people to slow down a little bit.
I know...There are some people here in the US, from the SOUTH I can not understand...
LOL
DJ

Answer 7

its the same in the states I cant understand a Mass raise person and some other dielects confuse me different environs make for different means of conveying thoughts

Answer 8

oh im italian and jeez, i dont understand nothin' about other people accent there in italy... cant there be a normal italian language?? i mean, for example, instead of saying for example 'whts up?' they say only the 'up' probaly in a strange way so you dont understand nothing theyre saying.

Answer 9

Hmmm... I really don't know... But maybe there could be different versions of Italien... I learned french only to learn that people in my area who speak french are actually speaking "cajun french" many of the words are quite different as is the accent.... As far as italien, I don't know

Answer 10

Well In Italy you can speek Sicilian, or other langues in italy. Their all Italian but they pernonce it different. Or the old guy was just reeally old. LOL!